the International Journal

http://www.transnav.eu

on Marine Navigation
and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 7
Number 3
September 2013
DOI:10.12716/1001.07.03.06

An Empirical Survey on the Role of Human Error in

Marine Incidents
A.H.Mokhtari&H.R.KhodadadiDidani
ChabaharMaritimeUniversity,Chabahar,Iran

ABSTRACT:Errorisapartofhuman.Despitethatorganizationsaretryingtoreduceerrortothezerolevel,this
goal is unachievable. As far as human operation is taking place in a complicated environment, error will
occurred,anditspossibilitywouldbeincreasedundertheconditionsofstress,extraloadingwork,andfatigue.
Oneofthemostimportanttransportationmodesismarinetransportations.Theseaisanunsafeplacethatkills
manybyasimpleevent.Everyyeartherearethousandsofmarineaccidentsthatresultininjuries,casualties,
marinepollutionsandalsomassivefinancialloss.Toreducetheaccidents,thereshouldbemoreattentiontothe
factorssuchassuitabletrainingofhumanresource,properimplementationofnationalandinternationallaws
and regulations, vessels and the equipment on board them, port facilities, and also the utilities for marine
searchandrescue.
In this research 1816 marine accidents have been studied in five Iranian shipping companies. 17 factors are
known to be effective in occurrence of human error in these accidents. Four factors of the most influence are
negligence,poortraining,inadequatetools,andlackofskillandexperience.

1 INTRODUCTION
A large number of maritime accidents and incidents
involve some form of human error (Harati et al.,
2006).AsreportedbyPortandMaritimeOrganization
(PMO)ofIran,marineaccidentswereidentifiedtobe
the cause of death of more than 5000 people in this
decade.Studiesshowthatforeachseriousaccidentin
the maritime domain, or in any other domain, there
are a larger number of incidents, a larger number of
nearmisses,andmanymoresafetycriticaleventsand
unsafe acts (Kristiansen, 2005). Pomeroy and
Tomlinson(2000)statedthatmanyofthefailuresare
actually the result of errors (i.e. latent failures) that
have been designed and constructed into highly
complex systems especially system integration and
interfacing.

The full text of 44 marine incidents was analyzed

byPillips(2000),includingcollisionsandgroundings
reports. Indeed his study focused on evaluating the
effects of sleep in marine incidents. Tzannatos and
Kokotos (2009) examined human reliability with
reference to all accidents involving Greekflagged
shipsduring19932006,atimescalespannedoverthe
pre and postISM period. Celik et al. (2010)
developed a riskbased modeling approach to
enhance the execution process of shipping accident
investigation (SAI). Their paper addressed a fuzzy
extended fault tree analysis which combined the
effects of organizational faults and shipboard
technical system failures under a risk assessment
analysis. Mullai and Paulsson (2011) designed a
conceptualmodelforanalysisofmarineaccidents.

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Asintheaviationandothertransportationmodes,
human error is at the root of most preventable
casualties in the maritime field and around 70 to 90
percent of transportation crashes are, directly or
indirectly, the result of human error (Dhillon, 2007).
Human errors depend upon the internal factors
related to the operators characteristics and
differences such as skill, experience, task familiarity,
etc. and the external factors to the operators such as
equipment design and installation, task complexity,
work environment, organizational factors and
operating procedures. A proper balance between the
capabilityofthehumanoperatorandthedifficultyof
thetaskwoulddecreasethelikelihoodofhumanerror
(Whittingham, 2004). Figure 1 represents the most
commonhumanerrorsoccurintransportation.

Figure1. Human error categorization in transportation

(Dillihon,2007)

Celik and Cebi (2009) proposed an analytical

humanfactorsanalysisinordertoidentifytheroleof
human errors in shipping accidents based on the
fuzzy analytical hierarchy process. Sanders and
McCormick (1993) defined human error as an
inappropriate or undesirable human decision or
behavior that reduces or has potential for reducing
systemeffectiveness,safetyorperformance.
Whenweusethetermsafety,itwillencompass:
Safetyandhealthofpersons,
Safetyofvessel,and
Environmentalaspects
Hetherington et al. (2006) reviewed the literature
on safety in three key areas; common themes of
accidents, the influence of human error, and
interventionstomakeshippingsafer.
The control of safety in shipping is complex for a
numberofreasons(Kristiansen,2005):
International, regional and national laws and
regulations
Controlisexercisedbyanumberofagencies
Controlaffectsthevariouslifecyclesofthevessel
Lackofenoughinformationontheroleofhuman
in marine disaster coupled with the importance of
maritimesafetymotivatethisstudy.Theaims of this
researchcanbesummarisedasseekingtoanswerthe
followingquestionsincontextoftheIranianshipping
lines:
Q1.Whatarethemainrootcausesofhumanerror
inIranianshippinglines?
Q2. How these errors can be reduced in Iranian
shippinglines?
Firstly, this paper starts with research method.
Afterthat,themainrootcausesofmarineincidentsin
Iranianshippinglinesarestudied.Thepaperfollows
with a questioner based analysis on the ways of
reducinghumanerrorinmarineincidents.

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2 METHOD
Questionnaires are one of the most frequently used
methods for gathering data from individuals in
research studies (Bourque & Fielder, 1995). In other
words, the questionnaire is a technique of data
collectioninwhicheachpersonisaskedtorespondto
the same set of questions in a predetermined order
(Saundersetal.,2003).Whenthesurveyisconfinedto
oneorganization,andtheorganizationiswillingand
able to assemble groups of employees to respond to
the questionnaires at the work place, personally
administeringquestionnairesingroupsisagoodway
to collect data (Sekaran, 2000). Therefore, group
administration was found to be very appropriate for
thisresearchstudy.
In this study, different items associated with
humanerrorinmaritimetransportwereselfassessed
by respondents using a 5point Likert scale from
Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. All results,
analyses and tables using these variables were
constructed from answers to questions in the survey
instrument.
Itemsinthesurveyinstrumentrelatedtoquestion
and hypothesis were statistically examined in three
ways. Firstly, Cronbachs alpha and principal
component factor analysis were discussed to test the
reliability and validity of collected data. Secondly,
descriptive statistics were used to get a feel for the
data. Thirdly, appropriate statistical techniques were
conductedtotestthehypotheses.
With respect to statistical analysis, first each
item/variablewasindividuallytestedusingstatistical
techniques suitable for single samples, such as one
sample Chisquare and KolmogorovSmirnov one
sample tests, to ensure the existence or lack of
significant differences between the frequencies of
response categories of each item. Second, each
variable was assessed by organization location,
managerial position titles, and managerial education
levels variables using a series of nonparametric
statistical tests, such as Chisquare test of
relatedness/independence, KruskalWallis several
independent samples test, and MannWhitney and
KolmogorovSmirnovtwoindependentsamplestests.
These tests were carried out to reveal whether the
significant differences, which were found in
frequencies of responses to each item (first sets of
statisticaltests),wererelatedtoanyparticularbranch,
position title, or education level (hypothesis of
independence tests). Third, finally the first variable
(human error) was used as a pivot variable and
checked with the other variables for possible
correlationusingSpearmansrhobivariatecorrelation
(Spearmansrankordercorrelationanonparametric
alternativetoPearsonsr)(Healey,1999).

3 HUMANERRORINMARINEINCIDENTS
Humanisthemainrootofmarineincidentswhichis
studiedintwocategories,includinghumanerrorand
human element. Personal, group, and organizational
factors are the main categories of human element,
while human error consists of operational, legal, and
knowledgebasederrors.

3.1 TheRoleofHumaninMarineIncidents
Humanerrorisaninseparablepartofmarineincident
all around the world. Indeed, majority of marine
incidentsaredirectlyrelatedtohumanerror.Likeits
globalscale,humanerrorisoneofthemaincausesof
marineincidentinIranianterritories.
Collecting the necessary data for analysis, face to
face interview coupled with the published reports
(2008todate)ofSearchandRescue(SAR)committee
ofPortandMaritimeOrganizationofIran(PMO)are
used as data collection method. Figures 2 to 6
represent the main causes of marine incident in the
mainIranianshippingline.

As same as the NITC, crew negligence and poor

training are the main causes of accident in Islamic
RepublicofIranShippingLine(IRISL).
As illustrated in figure 4, crew negligence is the
main cause of defects in IranoHend shipping line.
The second main root causes are belong to over
confidence and poor judgment leading to wrong
action.

Figure5.CausesofdefectsinValfajr

Figure2.CausesofdefectsinNITC

Asshowninfigure2,crewnegligenceisthemain
rootofincidentinNationalIranianTankerCompany
(NITC).Poortrainingandinadequatetoolsareatthe
secondlevelofimportance.

For Valfajr shipping line, crew negligence, poor

training, and working improper condition are the
main causes of marine incident, respectively, as
showninfigure5.

Figure6.CausesofdefectsinBOSCO

Figure3.CausesofdefectsinIRISL

Figure4.CausesofdefectsinIranoHend

As illustrated from figure 6, crew negligence and

poor training are the main causes of incident in
BonyadShippingLine(BOSCO),respectively.

Figure7NatureofdeficienciesreportedbyIranianshipping
lines

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In terms of shipping, as shown in figure 7, the

main deficiency reported is the problem of
negligence. Poor training, fatigue, inadequate tools,
and lack of skill and experience are other factors in
thecategoryofhumanerrors.

3.2 MethodsofHumanErrorReduction
As mentioned in section 2, more than 1800 Iranian
deck and engine officers (figure 8) are asked to
answer the questioner, which was prepared to find
thewaysforreducinghumanerror.

experiencearethemainrootcausesofhumanerrorin
marineincidents.
Unfortunately, there is no accurate data base for
reportsofmanyincidents.Indeed,thereisnoaccurate
and update data on marine accidents of unclassified,
nonconventional, and fishery vessels. Based on the
reports of SAR committee of PMO, these vessels are
usually engaged with problems such as machinery
failure, fire, flooding, hull rupture which can be the
result of poor control and inadequate regulations on
them.Inaddition,accordingtolotsofmedicalhelps,
crewinjuries,andmanoverboarddisastersreported
annually all around the world on these vessels, their
crew should act under adequate regulations
categorizedinthementionedoperatorerrorlevel.
Improving the level of safety in maritime trade
anddecreasingmaritimedisasters,followingsshould
beconsidered:

Figure8.Respondentsranking

Based on the obtained results, followings are

selectedasthesolutionsfornegligence:

Increasingtheautomationlevel,
Morecontrolandsurvey,
Moreusageofalertsigns,
Moreaccurateworkingstandards,and
MoreaccurateProgrammingMaintenanceServices
(PMS)

Achieving the problem of poor training,

followingsareproposedbyrespondents:
ImprovingtheSTCWbasedtrainingsforseafarers,
Implementing ISM Code on nonconventional
vessels,
Increasing the safety culture by the use of on
boardtrainings,and
Improving the knowledge of officers on marine
perils
Regarding the seafarers ideas, followings are the
waystoovercomeinadequatetools:
Moreinstallationofalerttools,and
Onboardhierarchicalriskassessmentsystem
Increasing the skill and experience of seafarers,
followingareproposed:
Increasingthesimulatorbasedtraining

4 RESULTSANDCONCLUSIONS
This research studied the role of human error in
marine incidents in the main Iranian shipping
companies by the use of selfdata collection, coupled
with questioner among more than 1800 Iranian
seafarers.Basedontheobtainedresults,poortraining,
fatigue, inadequate tools, and lack of skill and
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Since there are usually many reports on marine

disasters on nonconventional vessels, Port State
Controls and Classification Societies should
control them more careful than oceangoing
vessels.
There should be annual training programs for
seafarers under safety conventions, in particular
the new amendments of the STCW, SOLAS, and
CORLEG.
Oil and fuel leakage in engine rooms is the main
root of fire, especially in small vessels. Thus
firefightingappliancesshouldcontrolregularlyby
both of the port state control and classification
societies.

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